Entertainment

The Colorism of Race: Bill Duke

Published

11 years ago

April 21, 2015

Oakland Post

Bill Duke

by Mary L. Datcher
Special to the NNPA from The Chicago Defender

Bill Duke is one of America’s most prolific actors and directors as he continues to capture the topics that challenge people to think consciously on social issues. His latest project, Light Girls, is a documentary film and book as a follow-up to his Dark Girls film based on the serious problem of skin color discrimination within certain ethnic cultures — specifically the African American community.

Having a distinguished and long career that has brought him from his hometown of Poughkeepsie, New York to studying drama at Boston University and continuing further instruction at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and the American Film Institute, Duke launched his professional career on Broadway. Among some of his more notable roles were the imposing, conscious character Abdullah Mohammed Akbar in the movie Car Wash, as well prominent roles in Menace II Society, Exit Wounds, X Men: The Last Stand and Get Rich or Die Tryin‘. But it is his talents as a director that continue to keep him on speed dial with many production companies and film studios.

Duke is considered one of the most sought-after directors to capture and bring stories to life regardless of race, gender or cultural definitions; he is the actor’s director and the director’s director. His directorial work has spanned from the critically acclaimed television series Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice to feature films such as A Rage in Harlem, Hoodlum, Deep Cover, and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit along with the PBS broadcast documentary Prince Among Slaves.

Duke was in Chicago to showcase his films Light Girls and Dark Girls along with participating in very in-depth panel discussions about the topics during the Black Women’s Expo last month.

CD: What was the motivation behind doing the films Light Girls and Dark Girls? It has been something that has been a taboo topic in the African American community. What made you feel it was necessary to tell this story?

BD: Based on my own experience as a young man coming up in Poughkeepsie, NY being dark complexioned and being tall, it was difficult. Luckily I had parents that re-enforced my worth to me. Early on, it was not easy for my sister, my mother and my niece. Some of the things they and other young girls went through from the community. Also, seeing the ‘colorism’ in our community today, it said to me, ‘This needs to be given a voice.’ As a result, I put together the two films and a book.

CD: Are you looking to do a third film as a follow up to Light Girls and Dark Girls?

BD: I’ve exhausted this territory. The next film is going to be called What is a Man? Is there a distinction between being born male and becoming a man? Many people feel there isn’t a distinction; you’re born male so you’re a man. In African tradition, that was not true. At 12 or 16 years old, you were given a spear and sent into the jungle. If you came back, there was a male ceremony with all other men who accepted you into the tribe. There’s a distinction between having a child, fathering a child and providing for that child. We want to examine that phenomenon. Is there such a thing called ‘manhood’? Are there manhood responsibilities? What are those responsibilities? Have they changed? Have they evolved? Also, what is the impact on those children of men that have several women who have borne their children?

CD: What motivates you to give back and mentor young people?

BD: It’s not our obligation, it’s our responsibility as Black men. The suffering of our young men due to lack of exposure to values and opportunities. The solution to that problem can’t be placed upon the shoulders of a system that has ignored them for many years.

We’re playing checkers in a chess game. Society is chess. We’re waiting for the chess players to come and teach us how to play chess. Those of us who learn how to play chess have to teach other people how to play chess. You can’t compete if you don’t have the information, knowledge and techniques for competition. So, it turns into complaints, violence and frustration. It’s a little frustrating and disturbing.

CD: Do young actors and filmmakers of color need to know how to play chess in order to compete and survive in Hollywood?

If you come to Hollywood and you are dreaming of having aspirations without understanding what is called ‘show business,’ you may get very, very lucky. That’s not what I see; I see the majority Black, Hispanic and Asians coming to Hollywood end up in positions that never lead them to their career. It’s an extremely competitive, rejection business. People hide the pain of rejection by dealing with the symptom which is usually through drugs, alcohol, partying or other activities that don’t deal with the root of the problem. Right now, the kids I see coming to Hollywood have no clue. They think we’re in the film and television business. We’re in the ‘media business.’

Duke immediately returns to the Windy City to begin filming, “Blaxicans” from mid-April to the end of May.

“It’s about a Mexican family and Black family where the young Black man falls in love with the Mexican girl. They get married and have a baby and she’s a “Blaxican.” The problem is that the father of the Black family hates Mexicans and the father of the Mexican family hates Black people. It’s a conflict between those two cultures while the wife, child and husband love each other and love their families. It’s how they resolve these issues; it’s a dramedy.”

It was just recently announced that Duke would be working on the biopic of the gospel legend Mahalia Jackson and filming in Chicago. Currently, the director is in discussions with potential investors to bring the gospel singer’s celebrated life to the big screen.

Duke reveals his admiration, “Not only was she close friends with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but she encouraged him to do the “I Have a Dream” speech at the march. She was one of the first brilliant Black business women in this country. Although, it was a male dominated culture and society, she let no man tell her what to do. She stood up for women’s rights and her rights. Her story should be celebrated. It’s not a Black story. It’s a story of a woman — a human being — that grew up in the rural South with nothing. She believed in God enough that her faith brought her through circumstances that the average person could not survive. You can feel through her music.”

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Arts and Culture

IN MEMORIAM: Oakland Dance Legend Reginald Ray-Savage, 67

Savage lived his life as tribute to the teachers who had shared their wisdom on art and life with him. With a palpably genuine enthusiasm and desire to bring out the best in people, and pass the torch to the next generation, he poured into his students, as his teachers and mentors had into him. His infectious energy, love of life, and generosity of spirit inspired countless souls, both inside and outside the dance studio.

Published

6 days ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Reginald Ray-Savage brought the old-school teaching techniques he learned in the Katherine Dunham Dance Company to the youth at the Oakland School for the Arts in 2003. Courtesy photo.

Special to The Post

Reginald Ray-Savage – dancer, choreographer, and beloved teacher, mentor, and inspiration to many – passed away on May 17. The Oakland School for the Arts dance instructor was 67.

Born Reginald Ray, Jr. in St. Louis, Missouri, on Sept. 5, 1958, he formally adopted the name ‘Savage,’ to honor the great Archie Savage, his mentor at Katherine Dunham’s Performing Arts Training Center where his dance training journey began in East St. Louis, Illinois.

He soon started dancing professionally with Katherine Dunham Dance Company, making dance a way of life. His grit, tenacity, and notorious work ethic brought him scholarships to train at multiple prestigious dance institutions, including The Ailey School (NYC) and Ruth Page School of Dance (Chicago), under the direction of acclaimed ballet instructor Larry Long and Dolores Lipinski-Long.

He danced with several companies including Joel Hall Dance Company, Ruth Page Ballet Chicago, Lyric Opera, Chicago City Ballet, American Festival Ballet, and touring productions of “Music Man” and “A Chorus Line”.

In 1989, Savage moved to Oakland where he started teaching seven days a week, amassing a devoted following that was attracted to his no-nonsense, impassioned, and effective old-school teaching style.

In 1992, at the insistence of his committed core of students, he founded Savage Jazz Dance Company (SJDC). Over a span of 30 years, Savage produced more than 100 original works, and tour SJDC nationally and internationally, performing at Casa del Jazz in Rome to a packed house and rave reviews—the first dance company to receive such an invitation.

Savage built SJDC into one of the Bay Area’s most respected dance companies, creating a signature style known for its combination of disciplined training, blended with rich artistic musical expression, and raw energy.

In 2003, Savage joined the Oakland School for the Arts as chair of the School of Dance. Over the next two decades, he created, built, and maintained a strong dance program, recognized, and respected by other dance institutions for forging well-trained and resilient dancers and human beings.

The depth of Savage’s tough love and care, and the skill of his teaching and mentoring are reflected in the careers of his students who have gone on to dance with the San Francisco Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company, Mark Morris Dance Group, Janet Jackson, Ariana Grande, and companies across the globe.

Mark Kitaoka, a photographer hired by Savage in 2016, posted a living eulogy on the dance instructor.

“When I see the self-pride he builds in his students I am constantly impressed that people like Savage still exist in our ‘meme’ society,” Kitaoka wrote. “The kids he mentors are fiercely loyal to one another and I’m certain his methods teach each of those kids to put aside social status, race and gender and is replaced by solid loyalty for other souls.

“What Savage contributes to our world cannot be completely summed up in a few meager paragraphs but can be seen in the countless lives of those he has touched. Because of him, our world, and the world of the future is both a richer and better place.

Reginald Ray-Savage will forever be missed, remembered, and lovingly quoted. He is survived by his beloved wife, Alison Hurley, his sister, Sonia, and his brothers, Pierre, and Andre. May his inextinguishable spirit and impact live on in all the lives he touched.

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Oakland Post: Week of June 17 – 23, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 17 – 23, 2026

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1 week ago

June 20, 2026

Oakland Post

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Books

Book Review: Something We Said: Richard Pryor, A Notorious Word, and Me

Though sticks and stones and words are weapons, as in the new memoir, “Something We Said” by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, they can also hold people together.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 17, 2026

bpusa-syndication

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, Copyright: c.2026, Publisher: Simon & Schuster, SRP: $29.00, Page Count: 304 pages

Sticks and stones may break my bones.

You know the rest of that childhood rhyme, and you know it’s not true: words have meaning, and they can cut like a knife. And yet, though sticks and stones and words are weapons, as in the new memoir, “Something We Said” by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, they can also hold people together.

The college lecture was supposed to have been about the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

It was supposed to be a lively discussion, but unintentionally it quickly veered off course. When a White student quoted a movie line featuring the “n-word,” the room went quiet, and Professor Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor panicked.

She’d grown up hearing that word, and seeing it, and she’d experienced the painful feelings attached to it. She knew who wrote that movie line. It was her father, Richard Pryor.

In her first few years, Pryor spent most of her time in a White world, hearing her mother’s tales of her larger-than-life father, and trying to grasp meaning in her father’s albums, peppered as they were with a word that was off-limits to her.

When she was six, she met her father for the first time. She began to visit him regularly.

It was fun at her Dad’s house; though he was sometimes moody, he taught her to fish and play dominoes. She became close with her siblings, fearful of her great-grandmother, and confused about a word that her father’s uncles threw around like a beach ball. It was a forbidden word at her mother’s house, but her father used it. Differently. Often.

The word hurt. She knew first-hand that it did.

“The word became a degrading slur that shackled all Black people together into a single, inescapable tribe,” she says.

So why was it okay for certain people to say it?

Knowing that, in the years since Richard Pryor’s accident and his death from multiple sclerosis, he’s become somewhat of a legend. It is a very satisfying thing, isn’t it? So is reading about him, especially from the viewpoint of one of his seven children. But his is not the only story you get inside “Something We Said.”

Wrapped around the life of Richard Pryor is the life of a word that straddles a line between danger and provocation, a word that author Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor refuses to say or even print. As she tells readers about her father and her loving-but-difficult relationship with him, she warily circles that word, as if it might bite. You may cringe, but she weighs it carefully, helping readers see it as a chameleon before always bringing us back to her father, his work, and his life before and after her and that word.

It’s a push-pull balance that holds readers fast, and keeps them there. It’s perfect for fans of this genre, or Richard Pryor, or of language – and it’s going to make you think. If you want a good memoir this week, one that may send you to your old album collection, “Something We Said” is rock-solid.